Thirty-five years ago this past weekend, London native Ted Giannoulas launched a career that would make him one of the most versatile entertainers in North America and change how fans watch baseball.

These days, Giannoulas — better known to millions of sports fans by his mascot alter ego, the San Diego Chicken — has slowed things down considerably, planning to appear at only five ball games all summer.

Last summer, he only did one — from an entertainer who, at his peak was doing 150 games a year.

But that doesn’t mean he isn’t still in demand. And, he notes, it definitely doesn’t mean he’s retiring.

“I can ramp it up easily. I’ve turned down a lot of offers,” Giannoulas, 60, said from his California home. “My wife is asking, ‘When are we going to have some time for ourselves?’ (So I’m enjoying) some home life.”

Giannoulas, born and raised in London, moved in his late teens with his family to San Diego.

In 1974, he was hired to dress like a chicken for a local radio station’s promotional events — and became so popular he started doing San Diego Padres games.

Soon, Giannoulas wanted to work on his own, and he got embroiled in a legal fight with the radio station over the character’s trademark. The station hired someone to replace him — but Giannoulas’s comic touch, not some guy in the yellow-feathered suit, was what fans wanted.

The replacement’s appearance sparked boos from thousands of Padres fans and even led to threats against the radio station, according to a 1979 article in Sports Illustrated.

Eventually, Giannoulas won the right to be the Chicken.

And on June 29, 1979 — 35 years ago Sunday — he was the star of arguably the greatest in-game promotion in sports history: the “Grand Hatching,” when he emerged from a giant egg before nearly 50,000 cheering Padres fans at Jack Murphy Stadium.

The game started nearly an hour late to accommodate Giannoulas’s return.

In the decades since, the kid who grew up on Essex St. and attended Central secondary school has helped change the live-sports experience for fans. He’s inspired scores of mad-cap mascots whose in-the-stands antics were modelled after him.

But there’s only one San Diego Chicken. His popularity earned him six figures a year while touring ballparks across North America.

“I’ve done well,” he said. “Not like the ballplayers, of course . . . but pretty good for a guy in a chicken suit, though.”

Financially secure and ready to relax a little, Giannoulas is limiting his dates. But he plans to ratchet up the schedule again in a few summers, to reconnect with fans.

He hasn’t been back to London in a long while, but keeps tabs on it.

In an interview, he was keen to discuss the recent resignation of mayor Joe Fontana.

San Diego Mayor Bob Filner also resigned last year — meaning the political leaders in his hometown and his adopted city were both felled by scandal.

Said Giannoulas with a chuckle: “In that case, it might be time for me to rent a place close to the White House.”

The San Diego Chicken isn’t leaving yet. But when he does, he’ll leave them laughing.